Questions were raised last year about whether FBI agents were actively recruiting technicians at Best Buy’s Geek Squad to search for illegal content on customer devices. According to newly released documents, however, prior reports only scratched the surface: Best Buy’s ties with the FBI appear more complex than once…
In the latest episode in a twisting and grotesque teen sexting case, an appeals court has reversed a lower court’s ruling related to the case a 17-year-old boy who was asked to strip, then masturbate in front of police officers in Virginia. A district court previously ruled that the estate of the lead detective, who…
Arguments were heard in an appeals court on Wednesday involving a controversial government hacking case in which the FBI participated in the distribution of child pornography. This is the most recent legal test of the FBI’s ability to hack any computer, anywhere.
Microsoft just scored a point for its customers’ privacy. Today, US District Judge ruled that the government can’t avoid a lawsuit alleging that its surveillance operations violate citizens’ constitutional rights. The judge in question is the same one that Donald Trump recently referred to as a “so-called judge.”
Today, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in United States v. Rocky Joe Houston, which challenged whether evidence from a camera pointed at Houston’s home for ten weeks without a warrant was admissible. It is.
Do you like privacy? You’re going to hate this news. A federal court just ruled that law enforcement doesn’t need a warrant to obtain cell tower location data. This is just a year after the same federal court ruled that it did need a warrant, a move some called the biggest privacy wins in recent memory. Now it is a…
The rules for how the Department of Justice tracks down criminals in the digital age are woefully arcane, but the DoJ's recent proposed changes to update those rules go way too far, using vague terms to grant sweeping remote search powers that would take a torrential horse piss on the Fourth Amendment.
Here's some not-so-surprising news for you: federal prosecutors apparently think it's perfectly fine to hack into American citizens' computers without first obtaining a warrant. After all, that's how they caught Silk Road kingpin Ross Ulbricht.
At this point, nobody's surprised to hear that the authorities can track your cell phone. But what you might not realize is just how easy and how incredibly cheap it is.
In the United States, the Fourth Amendment regulates citizens' right to privacy from the government. Unfortunately it was written over 200 years ago, long before mass electronic surveillance. But now there are hopeful signs that interpretations of the Fourth Amendment may get much-needed updates in 2014.
On Friday, the secret court that oversees cases related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act renewed the order that enables the NSA to compel telecom companies to hand over records whenever it wants. Translation: No end in sight to the NSA spying on phone records.
Befuddled old judges? Not quite! Turns out Roberts is "the strongest proponent of Fourth Amendment protection" in City of Ontario v. Quon, a case that will affect the future of privacy for electronic communications. It's not a dumb question! [DCDicta]